


The Queen's Past

by AidansQueen



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alot of angst, Angst, Character Death, F/M, attempted suicide, some happy moments, some sad moments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-10
Updated: 2015-02-10
Packaged: 2018-03-11 14:09:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3329171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AidansQueen/pseuds/AidansQueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa has lived a long life, full of love and regret and misadventure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Queen's Past

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer:I don't own any of it or make any money from any of it. All of it belongs to those who created Game of Thrones. A/N: this one shot is extremely AU. it's definitely way out in left feild. I hope you enjoy it anyways.

It is a cold grey morning as she sits beneath the weirwood at the heart of the godswood in Kings Landing. Her body is heavy with child, she can feel her firstborn kick every now and then, and smiles softly as she rubs her swollen belly. She was five and twenty now, practically an old maid as Margaery teased her once. Kings Landing was busy with life even this early in the morning, and her husband knew her routine by heart. He left her to her own devices when she was in the godswood; he knew she enjoyed the silence there.  Aegon was a good man, and very good king. When she ascended the throne as his queen at the age of nine and ten, she thought that life had finally started to make sense.

                Her life before Aegon had been chaotic. She had done terrible things in her past, things she did only to survive. Granted if she could survive Petyr Baelish then she could survive anything. She thinks of Winterfell with a smile on her lips. Her sister Arya lived there with Jon Targaryen her husband and their children.  Jon Snow had never been a bastard at all, much to surprise of many. Sansa felt like the Stark’s had a monopoly on the Targaryen royalty for some reason. She married the Targaryen King while Arya married the Targaryen prince.  They hadn’t always lived there though. Darker times came before them, when Sansa lived there alone with her two year old son who was born out of wedlock to a dornish prince.

               Half the kingdom knew about the scandal even when Sansa married Aegon. She’d born Oberyn Martell a son, and kept him with her at Winterfell while she struggled to re-build the north. Two years she kept him with her, two years that Oberyn never came to claim his son.  Two years she waited for him, the man she loved, the man she’d do anything for. She loved him, she knew she did…and for two years she hoped he would come one day and take them both back to Dorne with him. When he did finally come it was only to claim his son. He told her it was for the best, that she would be free to re-build the north without the worry and distraction of raising their child on her own.

               Sansa wept bitter tears for months. The man she loved came to take her son but left her behind. The man she’d waited for, the man she loved. That was all in the past now, Sansa thinks quietly as she stares up at the red leaves of the weirwood. Her son was taken to Dorne and raised like the Prince he might have been had Sansa married Oberyn.  It had been a bitter political move on both their parts. She wanted to ruin the Lannisters as much as he did, even at the expense of her honor. It didn’t matter now anyways, she’d escaped Kings Landing shortly after and set about re-building the North when the war was over.

               Not long after Oberyn had taken their son did she marry Aegon a year later. At first their marriage was political as well as a motivation for harmony between the Starks and the Targaryens. Not long after they wed did Jon marry Arya, and that united their two families even stronger. Aegon gave Winterfell to Jon while ruled from his seat in Kings Landing. Daenerys their aunt ruled from her seat in Dragonstone far to the west and from those days on life had been peaceful. The problems began when Aegon couldn’t seem to get her with child, and even worse everyone knew it wasn’t her who was to blame, it was him. She’d born Oberyn Martell a perfectly healthy son, so they knew she wasn’t barren. As the years rolled by tensions between she and her husband grew bitter. They never did love each other, but they were fond of one another. It made Sansa sad to be at such odds with her dear friend and partner. Aegon was a good man who deserved to have a big family, something Sansa had desperately wanted to give him. They tried again and again but it was no use. Aegon wouldn’t dare set her aside though, Aegon knew that it wasn’t her fault, and he also knew if he did set her aside he could risk starting a war with the North.

               Then there was his Father. Rhaegar Targaryen had cropped up in the aftermath of war like the first blossom of spring, color shimmering through the snow covered ground. Everyone in Westeros including Sansa herself was absolutely shocked to see him alive. If it wasn’t bad enough that she couldn’t get with child, she had Rhaegar to contend with. They were always at odds with one another, they argued about everything from the color of the tapestries to the way one should hold a soup spoon. It was complete madness for a long while, and the worse it got the more Sansa began to despair. Her sister was surrounded by children, lived in a warm home with a loving husband and she was surrounded by the vultures of Kings Landing, a bitter husband who couldn’t fill her with child and his father who was no better than he. Somewhere along the lines though, she began to misunderstand Rhaegar. Somewhere along the lines she completely missed the obvious.

               It all came to a breathtaking halt one night, the night she’d drank too much wine, the night she’d wept bitter tears after a particularly miserable feast in the Kings hall.  It was that same night that she stood on the balcony railing, the icy night wind in her hair, the waves crashing against the stone hundreds of feet below her. It was staring down into the icy blackness that she could no longer bare the agony of living in Kings Landing anymore. It was being without children, having a loveless marriage, to be at odds even with one’s own kin. The funny thing about all of it was that her bitter husband was the one to save her. He’d seen it only seconds before she’d tried to jump.  He was running, yelling for his Father, yelling for the guards, screaming out her name only to have it swept away in the wind.

               She doesn’t even know how he found her to be honest, she’d snuck off to the section of the keep that had belonged to Rhaenys Targaryen, and she’d always liked this part of the keep. She kept her personal chambers in this wing, because she loved the color of the walls and warmth of the rugs and hearths. She doesn’t know how he found her, only that she feels his arms being slung about her waist as he yanks her back off the railing. She cries out, she doesn’t want to keep trying; she wants him to let her go.  Her face is blotchy and red and tears stain her cheeks, and Aegon sweeps her up into his arms and carries her bridal style to her bed chambers. She is sobs against his chest until she faints, and when she wakes again she doesn’t have the energy to leave her bed.

               She is bed ridden for weeks, she eats very little and drinks even less. She sleeps most of the day away, and when she is awake she refuses to get up. She drives the servants away; she wants to be left alone. Coming back into her own head she is ashamed of what she’d done. She was ashamed to see the terror in Aegon’s face as he carries her to her bed chambers, to hear of the gossip spreading around about how Aegon pushed her to such an extreme. What was worse was the way Rhaegar wept and raged. She’d never seen such emotion in him, but he never left her side. For weeks he’d sit with her in her bed chambers and lull her to sleep with music he played on his harp.

               For weeks he tried to get her to eat and drink and get out of bed.  It was bizarre to see him like this, but it didn’t take Sansa long to figure out why he was doing it.  She’d never realized it until she saw him weeping, his face half hidden in shadows as he sat by the hearth while he thought she slept, weeping as he played his harp. He was in love with her, and had been for some time. Somehow he managed to get her out of bed. It was for him that she got dressed and let him walk with her through the courtyard. She spent most of her time with him now, because out of all of them he made her the happiest. Somehow Rhaegar had picked up all the scattered pieces of her spirit and pieced her back together, though it took him a long while to do it.

               Eventually Aegon began to notice. He noticed the way they smiled at each other though nothing had ever happened between them.  He knew that his Father loved his wife; he knew that with unshakable certainty. A decision formed in his mind, a decision he hoped would save his wife from any more grief and loneliness, and resolve the problems he faced with providing an heir.  For all their faults he did care about Sansa, he cared about her dearly. When Arya had found out that Sansa had tried to take her own life, Arya had nearly knocked his teeth in thinking he’d done something to cause it.  In a way he felt responsible, he felt that because he left her childless, because he hadn’t been there when he should have been, because he’d been so busy and away from the castle for months at a time that maybe he’d caused it.

               He wanted to fix it now though; he wanted to make her smile again. When he married her he’d promised to take care of her, vowed that he would protect her and cherish her.  So when he took his decision to his Father, he wasn’t surprised that Rhaegar was angry.

“What you are asking me to do is…it would _dishonor_ her,” he says earnestly, “don’t you have _any_ respect for your wife?”

“I have the utmost respect for her Father,” Aegon says pointedly, “and that is why I am asking you to do this. My lady wife is dishonored by her childlessness…I know you love her…and I know she loves you. Put a child in her; restore her honor where I cannot. Give her children enough to fill these halls if that is what she wishes, make her smile and love her in ways that I’ve failed too.”

When Aegon approached her on the topic she thought he was mad at first. “Aegon I can’t do this…I can’t….lay with your Father. You’re asking me to bare his children and tell everyone their yours.”

“I know you love him,” Aegon says as she looks away, “don’t bother denying it…I can see it in both your faces. If I had the power I would gladly step aside and let you marry him instead of me…but I don’t have that power because you and I both know our families would be ruined by it. This is what I can give you though...you can be my Father’s wife in every way save for marriage in the sept. You can bare his children and spend the rest of your days with him. I know you love him…and I know he loves you.  We need heirs and it isn’t your fault that I can’t get you with child. We both know this.”

* * *

 

               It took a week of consideration before Sansa consented to it. She knew it would work; Aegon looked so much like his Father that nobody would ever tell the difference.  It was long till Rhaegar got her with child, her firstborn.  In the passing months she bore him a son who Aegon named Viserys after his Uncle. Then came Rhaenys which was Sansa’s choice, and Rhaegar after Aegon’s father for their youngest.  In the summer that followed the birth of their youngest son, they held a summer ball in the throne room. It would be the first time Sansa had seen Prince Oberyn since he took their son to Dorne all those years ago. She’d written to her son, her beloved Eshan. They’d corresponded over many years, and she’d seen him twice since he left Winterfell.

               He was at the ball tonight in fact, and for the first time she would get to introduce him to Aegon and Rhaegar.  It goes as well as can be expected, he is a natural born child in a room full of trueborn high-bred lords and ladies. She doesn’t give a damn what they think, she loves her son.  He retires with Oberyn’s paramour Ellaria to their private apartments later on while Sansa and Rhaegar laugh and dance and dine on good food. Meanwhile up above Oberyn and Aegon watch, and Aegon tells Oberyn the story behind what really happened the night Sansa stood on a balcony ledge and the events that led up to it.

“She tried to kill herself,” Aegon says quietly, solemnly. “I failed her in so many ways Uncle…I couldn’t fail her again.”

“I never knew,” he admits softly, “I took Eshan because I thought it was best…had I known she’d loved me….I _wanted_ to marry her Aegon. I would have taken her back to Dorne with me but I thought it would be wrong to tie such a young and beautiful woman to someone who is twice her age. I wanted her to have a better chance in life…and I thought she was happy here with you.”

“Do me a favor,” Aegon says quietly at the revelation of Oberyn’s words, “Never tell her that…. _never_. It took my Father years to pick up all the pieces and put her back together properly…I think if she ever found that out it would break her.”

They silently agree to keep it to themselves and never speak of it again. It took Oberyn only one glance at the smile on Sansa’s face as she danced with Rhaegar to know that he would never crush such a happiness, not when it was fought for so earnestly.

 

* * *

 

It is two years later and Sansa glares at Rhaegar from across the feasting table. How Cersei Lannister managed to escape being beheaded she will never know. How that wicked wretch of a woman managed to retain Casterly Rock under the direction of Tyrion Lannister is another mystery. Tyrion was her keeper, and as of late he wasn’t holding that leash quite tight enough for her liking. That blond hag was pawing at her beloved and she didn’t like it one bit. After the feast she was so mad she wanted to tear Cersei’s perfect hair out. There had been a proposal of marriage for them, one that was laid at Aegon and Daenerys’s feet out of jest by Tyrion, he obviously had no desire to really let his sister back into Kings Landing.

                              It still angered her, and she still stomped around in her bed chambers as she tore off her evening gown and tossed it over a chair. Rhaegar was _her_ husband; he was _hers_ even if not in name.

“You’re angry with me,” he says quietly, watching her yank the jeweled clips from her hair.

She glares at him in the mirror of her vanity. “You let that wretch touch you…she was pawing all over you…you _know_ what she did to my family Rhaegar. And _Tyrion_ …the nerve he had making such a proposal.”

“He was only teasing my love,” he says soothingly, helping to take the braids from her hair. He cards his fingers through her fiery locks and presses kisses to her bare shoulders, “don’t be angry with me…you know I’d never accept it anyways.”

“I just wanted to rip her hair out,” Sansa mutters darkly, “she was just so _blatantly_ flirting with you…”

“Like Oberyn was with you right in front of Aegon,” Rhaegar teases lightly, “you know I wasn’t pleased watching him drool over you either.”

“Oberyn and I are old acquaintances, and you know our history…we have a son together. He was just teasing…he was only trying to wind Aegon up,” Sansa says as she slips her small clothes off and tugs on her night dress. Rhaegar catches the hem and pulls it back, leaving her bare before him. He tugs her close and kisses her, and it doesn’t take much for her to forget what they were arguing about.  Rhaegar was hers, and he always would be.

 

* * *

 

The years slip away and her sons and daughter are grown.  Rhaegar had long since left this world, and now she gets word that Oberyn was on his deathbed as well.  She sails for Dorne at first light and arrives in the evening on a week later, being greeted by her son who was nearly taller that she was.  When she finds Oberyn in his bedchambers Ellaria is seated at his side, soothing him with soft words.

“How is he?” Sansa whispers softly.

“Not good,” Ellaria says, trying to hide the tears glistening in her eyes, “he’s…he’s slipping away I think.”

She sits with him and holds his hand, kissing each knuckle until he wakes. He is old and gray now, but she isn’t much better.  She was well over forty now, nearing fifty.  She kisses him softly, whispers how much she has always loved him and hears him chuckle dryly.

“I’ve loved you too,” he admits, and she blinks down at him, surprised by the confession. He admits the truth to her, admits everything that he should have done but never did.  She weeps against his shoulder but fights the tears, smiles through the pain as they talk about happier times. He tells her stories of Eshan growing up and she gives him stories about her children back in Kings Landing. She is silently bitter a little, bitter that they could have had years and years together. She will always love her beloved Rhaegar, who was the center of her whole damn world for so long.

               If Rhaegar had been the earth than Oberyn was the sun, and she needed his warmth to keep the cold away. She had it though, in their son Eshan. He would always live in through their son.  She stayed with him till he slipped away from her in the night one evening, and when she woke in the morning his hand was still warm in hers.


End file.
